Richly intriguing, insightful and thrilling and just as charming and geeky as Ready Player One. Ernst Cline’s long awaited sequel (released in 2020, nine years after the first book was published in 2011). This sequel is relatable journey into adulthood and relationships, along with being an enjoyably unpredictable joyride through 1980’s popculture, and the benefits and dangers of virtual reality and being able fully immerse your five senses and mind into the oasis, something beyond a digital avatar.
Ready Player Two sees us return to a changed world after the Hi-Five (Wade, Samantha, Diato and Hench) take over the Oasis company, there are personal and virtual battles to face that comes to a satisfying futustic ending, but not till after plenty of twists, turns and hard and unfocused choices.
A original and vividly engrossing science fiction sequel from a line, it has all the elements of a realistic portrayal of entering adulthood and an bold engaging commentary on how technology, including virtual reality and virtual immersion has the potential to both elevate and doom us, depending on how we use it and more importantly, why we use it.
In Ready Player Two, we find Wade Watts and Samantha have grown apart after the excitement, fame and wealth of their new positions goes to his ahead, as Samantha and Wade now only see each over with the others at the Oasis company meetings, as she goes to save the world and help those not as advantages as her, as she always wanted to do. The discovery of a nee head set that will allow people to put their brains in a sleep like state, allowing them to enter the Oasis and being to not just see and hear but also to feel, and touch and smell everything inside the oasis. However, Wade and the others are blind to his faults, Samantha to no avail tries to be the voice of reason seeing there are dangers as well as benefits and staying in there too long could lead to serious health problems or in rare cases, be fatal.
Wade then receives a mysterious new quest to find the seven pieces of a soul in the Oasis, that is somewhere connected to the Oasis Creator Halliday, his ex best friend Arg and Argus deceased wife Kira. Eventually their old enemy Sorento breaks out of prison and holds everyone in the team with an new Oasis Headset (Wade, Hench and Diato) trapped and unable to log out of the Oasis until they complete the quest for him and an evil twisted version of Halliday’s consciousness in his avator form, along with trapped the Headset less Samantha in her plane, threatening to crash it if she and others do not comply with the quest. She is the only one able to log in and out of the Oasis as she has no headset, unlike the others, who will die if their brains do not help Wade to finish the quest to find the seven shards for him before the maximum time limit one can plug their brain into the Oasis for, is up.
In a race against time and mortality; Wade, Samantha, Hench and Diato travel through familiar and unexplored areas of the Oasis, for an action packed, tense and suspenseful pace that continues to increase and build throughout the novel. This sequel is filled with danger and obstacles as they search for the seven shards needed to save their lives, the oasis and the lives of the millions of other headset users trapped in the Oasis with them, and find a way to once again battle Sorento and now a evil Halliday.
This quest has higher stakes and fatal consequences if the Hi-Five do not succeed, which will leave readers gasping at and glued to the pages, and even sharing a laugh or tear or two as the character develop into mature influential people who suffer relatable and real hardships but also experience the joys of going forward in life. In particular, Wade had a chance to redeem himself after the fame and power of the headset and his position lead him to fall down a dark and twisting rabbit hole.
We also see Samantha sticking to her beliefs and goals, as she should, and she also comes to take risks whilst remaining true to who she is and reconciling with Wade, both having to confess to mistakes, as if they can show us anything is that becoming an adult and their own good person can be hard, but it’s never to late to try and to stand your ground.
the girl and the city of books 
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